Dr. Swider received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 2008. Some of her research interests are: gender, global inequality and immigration, social movements, and asian studies. She does extensive ethnographic research on migrant workers in China and the "precarious" nature of their work. She is currently working on a book that will detail the experience of these Chinese workers. Dr. Swider typically teaches courses on social inequalities, qualitative methods, sociological theory, and urban & labor studies. She also works with the Confucius Institute at Wayne State.

Dr. Sarah Swider's research has recently been highlighted in a radio interview, Peasantry to Precarity. This radio interview showcases her research on Chinese workers and it has now been rebroadcast on several national websites. In this interview Dr. Swider describes how an “…astonishing number of people in China are moving from peasantry to what's called precarity. They're moving from the countryside into cities to take precarious jobs in the urban informal economy." You can listen to her radio interview here.